Integration of semiconductor chips has been increased with the development of technologies. In general, complete semiconductor chips undergo electric inspection before packaged, and good products are packaged and bad products are abandoned, in accordance with the inspection result. A probe card that electrically connects a tester equipped with a built-in measurer with the pad of the semiconductor chips is used in the electric inspection.
Electric inspection for line of center (LOC) elements of the related art has used a cantilever type probe 100 shown in FIG. 1.
However, C4 (Controlled Collapse Chip Connection) type devices that can improve electric performance and increase integration are recently used in the non-memory field and communication field, the pad arrangement of the C4 devices generally has a non-uniform two-dimensional array and the pad pitch of the semiconductor chips is decreased with the high integration of the semiconductor chips, such that a vertical micro contact probe is required for this reason.
In general, the shape of vertical micro contact probes is limited because these are manufactured by a process for semiconductors, such as electroplating. Further, the probes should have a structure for absorbing vertical displacement to overcome the step between the pads and should generate lateral force to remove native oxide on the electrode surface.
A bellows shape micro contact probe 200 shown in FIG. 2 has been proposed to attenuate stress, under those conditions.
However, in the bellows shape micro contact probe 200 of the related art, buckling or out-of-plane behavior still occurs, and is difficult to be applied when the step between pads is large, while it is difficult to reduce the pitch between the probes.
Further, since a specific guide is used to prevent the buckling in the related art, the manufacturing cost increases and it is difficult to ensure a space between the probes.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.